"I'm trying to continue my work": these French-Iranians are campaigning for the municipal elections, their minds sometimes preoccupied with the war in the Middle East.

One week before the first round of the municipal elections, Marianne Desset is very busy with the campaign: handing out leaflets, going door-to-door... But this French-Iranian woman is making time to try to call her mother, who still lives in Iran, a country under bombardment since the start of the strikes launched by Israel and the United States on February 28.

Marianne Desset, 16th on Christophe Béchu's list (Horizons) in Angers, settled in France at the age of 35, in 2020. She left Iran for several reasons: living with a Frenchman, her relationship was being monitored by the authorities, her tourism business was struggling due to the pandemic as well as the social and political tensions in her country. And she found it increasingly difficult to live under a regime that repressed every protest movement. This lecturer at the Catholic University of the West agreed to join the list of the current mayor of Angers for the municipal elections because of her interest in civic issues. "Coming from a country where we don't yet have democracy, where the Iranian people are a non-issue in all political debates, seeing that in Angers we have participatory democracy, that people can decide which projects public money is spent on, is fascinating," explains Marianne Desset. She even adopted the name Marianne in France when she acquired citizenship at the end of 2022: "You can't get more French than Marianne, she's the symbol of liberty, it was a very symbolic choice of name." It is also out of love for freedom that Marianne Desset is running for mayor: "Freedom of conscience is a great freedom that France has given me, and working for my city is a way of giving back to France." Mehrnoosh Sahranavard, second on the list of Nicolas Isnard, the outgoing LR mayor of Salon-de-Provence, also emphasizes his gratitude towards his town to explain his candidacy in the municipal elections. "Salon is my beloved city, my second home. When I was uprooted, when I had lost everything, it took me in its arms and helped me rebuild my life from scratch," she says. Mehrnoosh Sahranavard was unable to return to Iran after a trip to France in 2011 for a documentary she was making about the French apothecary Nostradamus. "An article published in the Salon daily newspaper showed me without a headscarf, and this article was published on websites in Iran," she recounts. "I'm not making it an issue in the campaign." Her family is still in Iran, and she tries to stay in touch with them despite the internet shutdowns imposed by the Iranian authorities. “We are in a unique situation; I am both worried and pleased” because “there is hope that this will lead to the liberation of the Iranian people and the end of this regime,” she affirms. Meanwhile, Mehrnoosh Sahranavard “doesn’t want to mix the history of Iran with the campaign” for the municipal elections. “I have the mayor’s support, but I’m not making it a campaign issue,” she asserts. Marianne Desset echoes this sentiment, saying she “is trying to keep her Iranian life separate from her French life during the campaign.” "I'm trying to continue my work and ensure my commitments aren't affected by this: I'm still going door-to-door, putting up posters, handing out leaflets. But it's still difficult; I'm present as much as possible, but part of my thoughts and soul is elsewhere," she said. The Iranian Red Crescent announced on Tuesday that more than 780 people had been killed across the country since the start of the American and Israeli strikes. On Thursday, the official Iranian news agency IRNA reported 1,230 deaths since Saturday. "We've been stressed for 45 years."Arash Saeidi, the LFI-backed candidate in Angers, must also campaign despite the war affecting his country of origin. Born in Iran, where he lived the first years of his life before settling in France with his parents, the MEP is anxiously following the strikes hitting the country. "I've seen videos of clouds of smoke from explosions 300 meters from my grandmother's house. I imagine my grandmother under clouds of smoke at 90 years old," he says. But he emphasizes above all that this fear is not new for Iranians. "We're used to it; we've been stressed for 45 years. When the embargo caused inflation to rise, when there were waves of repression of popular uprisings since the 2000s..." the MEP explains. "Unfortunately, you get used to it. There are always moments of greater stress than others, but I have the impression that people are only now discovering that Iranians have been suffering for 45 years," he laments. The Israeli-American strikes have added to this Angers resident's anxiety about Iran's future. "I don't understand my fellow citizens who are celebrating and who were calling for the bombings. I've never seen a democracy established by bombs," asserts Arash Saeidi. However, the conflict in the Middle East is not a topic in his municipal election campaign, as it focuses primarily on local issues. "It's far away for people. Iranians aren't Ukrainians in their eyes," denounces Arash Saeidi. "This has no impact on the campaign. The only impact it has is on my sleep, but there are pills to fix that," he joked.